Omega's Truth - Nora Phoenix Page 0,100

always right by his side, and his mate nodded. “They need to see you and feel your power. You may not be their savior, but you are their hope.”

Lidon let his wolf fill him and shifted. Then he walked through the masses and let them touch him, hug him, dry their tears in his fur. Palani had been right. More than anything, the people needed hope. The moon had given way for the sun, which rose bright in the blue sky. A new dawn. A new day. A new era. The wolf shifters had returned, and they were here to stay.

34

It was a week later, and Palani was bone tired, having barely slept. Most of the pack had gone home, but he, Lidon, and Grayson had stayed behind to ensure things weren’t going to shit. They’d found rooms in the army headquarters. Every night, Lidon and Palani sought comfort with each other, lying exhausted in each other’s arms. Maz and Enar had stayed behind in the omega camp and had led the care team, which also included Lucan, Sivney, and Yitro. Lidon had put Bray and Kean in charge of the pack, and they’d taken the others back.

The first two days had been pure chaos. With Armitage in jail, it had taken effort to figure out who should be in charge, until Huck Mills, York’s Minister of Justice, had shown up. When Armitage had made his grab for power, Mills, a savvy, well-educated lawyer, had been out of the city, attending the funeral of his brother-in-law. That had saved his life, as those supporting Armitage’s move had hunted down all cabinet members…and killed them.

Mills had been smart enough to go into hiding. There, he’d plotted a course of action against Armitage, gaining support from regional and local governments throughout the country. But before he could carry out his plan, Armitage had been brought down. Once Mills had heard about it, he’d returned to the city, where he’d found out Lidon was the man to talk to.

Once they’d ascertained that Mills was not only constitutionally in charge according to the line of succession but was also a good and honorable man, Lidon had gladly handed over the horrible task of getting the country back on the rails. That had never been his ambition anyway. He and Palani had stayed, though, making sure that Mills’s course of action was the right one. But Mills had taken to his task with fervor, appointing people to oversee crucial restoration endeavors. His first order of business had been to restore power to the whole city and to enable the cell towers again.

He’d officially fired Armitage and had relieved most of his senior commanders from their task. Armitage was in prison, his commanders released with the stern admonishing not to leave the country. Mills had assured Lidon and Palani that soon as he had a justice system up and running again, indictments would follow.

He’d contacted two retired generals, both of whom had agreed to temporarily come back to step in and lead the army. They’d been horrified at how the general had abused his power and misguided the army. Once they were in charge, they’d gone through the files and had found several junior officers with blemish-free records and had promoted them. Until the city had a fully functioning police department again, soldiers were still assigned to keeping order but under much more limited provisions, and martial law had been abolished.

A chief of police from the second-largest city in the country had taken over the police department and had started with rehiring cops. Sean, Felix, and Duer had sat down with the man to catch him up on the corruption problem in the force. Much to everyone’s relief, they’d been taken seriously. Sean had called his father and brother to tell them they’d been fired and that they could look forward to getting arrested on corruption charges. He’d told Palani that task had almost been as satisfying as making them piss their pants as a wolf.

Mills had also named an ad-interim minister of health. The former director of the hospital Maz had done his residency at had immediately focused on reopening the hospitals. The ad-interim minister of justice had visited two secret prisons and promptly released all betas and omegas held there plus more than a few alphas who had dared protest against the new regime.

One of the biggest struggles had been food, but with order restored, deliveries from the rest of the country had been